Why do bad things happen to good people? —It’s temporary…

(CUSA) – Goodness is an eternal reality. Evil is something we do in this world. Choosing one or the other is simple, but if you choose the latter, any worldly happiness you achieve won’t follow you past your grave. —Ed.

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCISTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2015

Dear brothers and sisters,

A courageous young mother with a husband and three children – and a tumor – “one of the ugly ones” – that keeps her nailed to her bed. “Why?” An elderly woman, prayerfully pious in her heart, whose son was murdered by the Mafia.

Why do good things happen to bad people?

How many times do we see this reality in bad people, in people who do evil, and seem to do well in life: they are happy, they have everything they want, they want for nothing. Why Lord? This is one of the many questions we have.

Why does this brazen evildoer who cares nothing for God nor for neighbor, who is an unjust person – even mean – and things go well in his whole life, he has everything he wants, while we, who want to do good, have so many problems?

The answer is in the responsorial Psalm which proclaims,

Blessed the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked Nor walks in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of the insolent, But delights in the law of the LORD.

Now we do not see the fruits of this suffering people, this people carrying the cross, as on that Good Friday and Holy Saturday the fruits of the crucified Son of God, the fruits of His sufferings were yet to be seen.

Whatever He does turns out well; and what does the Psalm say of the wicked, of those for whom we think everything is going fine?

Not so the wicked, not so; they are like chaff which the wind drives away. For the LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.

This ruin, this scattering and oblivion, which is the end of the wicked, is one found dramatically and emphatically stressed in the Gospel parable of Lazarus – the symbol of misery with no escape, to whom the rich reveler refused even the scraps from his table.

It is curious: that rich man’s name is never spoken. He is just an adjective: he is a rich man (It. ricco, Gr. πλούσιος).

Of the wicked, in God’s record book, there is no name: he is an evil one, a con man, a pimp … They have no name. They only have adjectives. All those, who try to go on the way of the Lord, will rather be with His Son, who has the name: Jesus Savior. It is a name that is difficult to understand, inexplicable for the trial of the Cross and for all that He suffered for us.

________________________________________________________Translation from Vatican Radio